


Oddity

by ghostwriter00797



Category: Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Cody literally has the power of friendship among other less savory side effects, Cody the Quasi-Eldritch Being, Does this make sense?, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, and only if you squint and think really hard i guess, basically Cody the Robot Therapist Trope taken to the extreme in a weird way, idk I wrote this at midnight, it's not betaed or anything, of very minor characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 02:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriter00797/pseuds/ghostwriter00797
Summary: Cody Burns is... not exactly human.





	Oddity

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know what the heck this is. enjoy i guess?

The people of Griffin Rock  _ like  _ Cody Burns. He’s kind, caring, a great problem-solver, and just as heroic as the rest of his family. There’s not a single person that dislikes him on the island, and on the rare occasion there is. Well.

They don’t tend to last long, for one reason or another.

They either fall victim to the normal scientific disasters or learn to love the kind child. In some cases they have to be dragged off the island kicking and screaming before they can harm the boy. It’s bizarre, but if there are still those that dislike Cody they hide it well. 

Even more bizarre is how quickly and easily Cody can vanish from the minds of the people. They like him, they’ll gladly accept his help, but the second he walks away they find their memories a bit blurrier at the edges. Fond, but not really there. Even his own family seems to forget that he exists sometimes. And then the rescue bots debut.

Griffin Rock and the Burns family begin to learn that maybe those odd people were on to something.

* * *

 

Charlie Burns has always known that his youngest child is… off. He loves Cody dearly, but no matter what he tells himself he still feels uneasy being alone in the firehouse with him at night. He always has. It’s a silly feeling, Cody is just a kid, but when the rescue bots are assigned to Griffin Rock, when Cody finds them out in less than a day, when he becomes so involved in rescue work, he realizes that there is an itch in the back of his mind. And it’s telling him that something has always been wrong. He’s just forgotten it.

He forgets a lot of things these days.

Charlie finds himself waking up halfway to the door, old car keys in hand and grocery list from two years ago in his hand. He finds himself dropping off to sleep in seconds halfway through the night shift. He remembers telling Cody that  _ no, you can’t come along on this call it’s too dangerous _ , blinks, and he’s pulling his son out of harm's way. There are so many blank spaces in his mind, filled with static, and when he tries to find a memory where there isn’t one the itch in the back of his mind turns into a pain that leaves colors sparking across his vision. He learns to leave it alone most of the time.

However, before each blank spot, he can remember talking to his youngest. Every single time Cody is  _ there _ , and every time he… he… what was he thinking about again?

* * *

 

Kade loves his siblings, no matter how much he may tease them. As the oldest, he knows it’s his job to keep them safe. It’s difficult when two of them work alongside of him, and one is a trouble magnet, but he can at least shield them from some of the less pleasant people they have to deal with in the line of duty. Like Huxley Prescott.

Huxley has always been a thorn in their side. The reporter has spent more than one night in a holding cell after trying to get a story by manufacturing his own disasters. Kade has never seen the man back down, even after being literally thrown off a cliff by rogue technology. He doesn’t want the guy anywhere near his siblings. So yeah, it’s more than a little disconcerting to see him calmly walking off after Cody talks to him  _ once _ . 

There’s no mention of that particular rescue mission on the man’s show that night. He doesn’t show up to the calls for the rest of the week. Kade definitely notices that Huxley’s eyes slide right over his siblings and the bots. The way they glaze over when he does that is weird, but what’s weirder is that every time he sees it, Cody is watching, smiling straight at the reporter who can’t see them.

The itch in his head that’s been bothering him since the rescue bots arrived turns into a sharp, stabbing pain for a short moment.

He goes to find his father. Blinks. Finds himself standing in front of the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in his hand and his father waiting patiently.

“Dad, don’t you think there’s something weird about Cody lately?”

His dad sighs, lowering his head into his hands.

“Kade, we’ve had this conversation three times in two days. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

What? They’ve gone through this?

“Wha?”

Another sigh.

“Alright. Tell me why you think Cody is weird.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. He tries to think of it, he really does, but the longer he searches the further away the memory moves. He doesn’t know when he closed his eyes, but the next time he opens them he’s on a call with Cody’s voice directing them through the comm. Whatever, it couldn’t have been that important, right?

* * *

 

Graham finds safety in logic and numbers. It’s why he’s an engineer. Yes, he’s willing to accept the weird science and weirder phenomenons that occur on Griffin Rock, but those always have a logical base to them. He can distill them down to numbers and take them apart until he understands. 

Graham can’t do that with Cody.

He writes it off at first. Thinks of it as his little brother simply being good with people. After all, Cody has always been empathetic to an extreme degree. It isn’t odd that people would listen to him because he understands. Then he starts to realize that a lot of those interactions are not logical in any way, shape, or form.

“ _ How _ ? How could you possibly have gotten the mayor to rethink the budget cuts?”

“I just asked politely. You watched me Graham.”

He thinks he might be twitching. He wouldn’t be surprised if he was because he  _ did _ watch his little brother do that. It doesn’t make any sense. The mayor doesn’t back down like that, not when he’s in hysterics and threatening budget cuts in every direction. He honestly shouldn’t have. Cody is ten, soft-spoken, and doesn’t have regular interactions with the man.  _ Nothing about what Cody just did is logical _ .

The itch becomes a sharp pain becomes a dull throb as he opens his eyes to the ceiling of his bedroom.

He doesn’t question how he got there.

* * *

 

Dani knows how to work a crowd. It’s a skill that she kept from her high school days, back when she was a lot wilder. She knows how to influence others and get the group mentality to change. She knows her body language, especially as a paramedic. And she has never seen a crowd disperse as fast as it does when Cody tells it to. She never hears exactly what he says, but he always smiles. People practically trip over themselves to leave when he does that.

It shouldn’t be possible.

There are a lot of things about Cody that shouldn’t be possible. She’s learned not to question them. It makes her head hurt whenever she tries. Still, sometimes she can’t let it be.

“Come on! You’ve got to let me in on your secret Cody!”

He looks at her, the epitome of innocent confusion.

“I ask nicely. That’s it.”

The itch intensifies for a moment, like a warning.

“Really? And nobody questions you? Come on Cody, you aren’t very good at lying.”

For a second she could swear the air around her little brother ripples.

“I’m not lying Dani! I swear!”

Pain lances through her head.

“Dani! Are you alright?”

It really hurts. What was she even doing? What were they talking about?

“Yeah. Just need some pain medicine. Got a nasty headache.”

She’s pretty sure her nose is bleeding too. Great. 

Somewhere in the pain, her own voice whispers. She’s always been the one to push the limits.

* * *

 

Everyone in the Burns family deals with the itch in different ways. Dani takes up extreme sports, while Graham buries himself in medical texts and theories. Kade exercises obsessively and Chief Burns takes to writing multitudes of journals to keep track of everything. It starts out slowly,  _ safely _ , but doesn’t stay that way for long. 

After a few months the bots have to start intervening. 

Blades has multiple spark attacks a day trying to keep Dani from doing life-threatening stunts. Boulder has to physically drag Graham from the pile of books he’s ensconced himself in and force the engineer to take care of himself. Heatwave has to trap Kade in his cabin to keep the man from working himself to death. Chase… Chase has to deal with Chief Burns’ increasingly faulty memory, taking to recording everything that goes on in the man’s vicinity so that he can help his partner when he becomes disoriented. 

The stress adds up. So they do something about it.

* * *

 

Heatwave finally has enough when Chief Burns actually passes out in pain after trying to remember something about Cody. He calls in everyone, gets them to the bunker, and locks every exit.

“We’re not leaving this room until we get to the bottom of this.”

Protests are ignored. If this goes on any longer someone will get hurt, and while he’s got some gaps in his memory banks, it’s nothing like what their human partners are experiencing.

“I’m going to sum it up for all of you. We all love Cody. We’d lay down our lives for him. He’s family. And all of you are having issues whenever you try to recall specific information about him. So we’re solving this. Boulder, start scanning.”

They don’t even get through the first scan before something shows up. Cody… is not right. He’s putting off a wavelength that seems to affect anything in his vicinity and that’s about all that they can get before the scans start to glitch.

“Guys?”

Heatwave has to tell Cody what they’ve found, and he hates every second of it. There are lots of tears.

In the end they can’t figure out a way to suppress the odd wavelength, but they do find a way to shield the Burns and themselves from it. It takes some trial and error, but it works well enough. 

The only thing that they ever really know about his oddity is that it seems to be the reason Cody can befriend anything and anyone. Heatwave and his team pretend they don’t see the scheming look in their young charge’s eyes after that particular revelation. None of them really want to know.

* * *

 

Optimus Prime enjoys Cody Burns’ company. The human youth is wise beyond his years, yet curious in the way only a youngling could be. He makes a point to find the time to teach the boy something every time he visits, and Cody takes the information in and learns faster than Optimus expects him to. 

And unlike Jack, Miko, and Raph, Cody is  _ quiet _ . Almost unnaturally so.

Maybe that’s why Optimus doesn’t notice the youngling curled up by the consoles as he warns the rescue bots of M.E.C.H. until long after he is done. He is not ashamed to say that the anger in the boy’s eyes scares him, though he does not know why.

Two weeks later M.E.C.H. is gone. Silas turns himself in, sobbing apologies, as do half of his forces. The other half… are no longer an issue. In the worst way possible.

He pretends not to notice the blatant glances in Cody Burns’ direction when he breaks the news to Heatwave and his team. He has the feeling that he doesn’t want to know.

* * *

 

It comes as absolutely no surprise to the bots and the Burns family when Cody hijacks a ground bridge and comes back with the whole of the Decepticon army willing to lay down their lives for him. There may or may not be a cult. Heatwave doesn’t care. He isn’t going to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

* * *

 

Two weeks and several peace treaties later, the war is over.

* * *

 

(Nobody ever really figures Cody out in the end. Griffin Rock is probably better off for it.)


End file.
